Cheap Girls with Failures' Union, Knife the Symphony and Army Coach

Nov. 14 • Bikehaus

When three guys heading toward their twenties formed Cheap Girls two and a half years ago, the project was intended to be something that they wouldn't take too seriously. Each of them had been in other groups before, and this one was supposed to have a good time without hitting the highways.

“We were going to be a party band,” recalls drummer Ben Graham.

One party quickly led to another and Cheap Girls quickly gained impressive momentum — so much that they reconsidered that original plan.

“We went into it with the idea not to follow anything that’s too mainstream these days, but more what influences us,” Graham says, citing Dinosaur Jr., Superchunk and Gin Blossoms as primary inspirations.

“It’s weird to us that people are like, ‘You guys remind me of what I used to listen to 15 years ago when I was a kid’ or in college or whatever.”

Graham sees these evocations as compliments as those bands are likely what led the Girls into unearthing more off-the-radar sounds. “We listened to (this style of music) when we were kids,” he says. “The last 15 or 20 years is what pure Rock &Roll is to us. It’s not really commercialized. It’s what speaks to us.”

My Roaring 20s, the band’s second full-length, was released last month. The disc has remarkably pristine production for a band creating this sort of music and indicates that Cheap Girls are serious about getting their material out there.

“We don’t go out of our way to make it the next best thing,” Graham says of Cheap Girls’ work. “We just put our ideas out there.”